As promised, this is your notification that I have passed the 110,000 word mark. The word was a not very helpful ‘when’. Every so often, I get a sudden spurt of inspiration. This usually comes when a major element in the story is revealed, as was the case yesterday. It is preceded, invariably, by a period of soul-searching and, sometimes, writers’ block, while I struggle to put down exactly what I need to link to the new development into the narrative. Neverthless, the spurt arrived on time and I wrote 2,500 words in the course of yesterday morning to take me past the latest landmark. Many writers claim to write that much in a day on a regular basis. I don’t. I set out with an objective of what I want to achieve in that day’s work, and stop when I have achieved it. Usually, it works out at 2,000 words or less, but it can, occasionally, be much more. All things considered, it doesn’t really matter how much you write in a day as long as the cumulative effort of all that work results in a good book.
What I wrote was, in some ways, the climax of the story, in that it is the only section that involves any real violence. That might sound a bit odd for a story set during World War ll, but, as I stipulated at the outset, this is a book about two people, not two armies.
I also write action books, of course. My ‘Avalind’ Fantasy stories fall into that category. Those books culminate in a big climax, like a battle or something magical. Usually, this occurs in the second-last chapter, with the final one devoted to tying up the loose ends. I like to think of it as the coda that follows the crescendo. The climax of this book occurs a little earlier than that. There will be at least one more chapter to follow, and an epilogue after that. The climax occurs while the second Battle of El Alamein is raging during October of 1943, but it happens in a farmer’s field in Northumberland. I won’t give away any more than that.
So, how much remains to be written? Difficult to say, but I don’t think it will reach 130,000 words now. Probably somewhere in the region of 120,000, which means that I will soon move on to the next, and equally critical stage of the book’s creation: the editing. That is for another post, though.
In the meantime, my mind is beginning to turn towards what I will write next. For years, I wrote ‘Avalind’ Fantasy books, interspersed with my ‘Rutter’ books, which are modern thrillers. That most recent ‘Avalind’ book, ‘Larussi’, was published in 2015, seven years ago. This book is compleletly different from those, written in a different style, and in the First Person. I feel that the experience has refreshed my brain. Elements of the approach I adopted in this book can be found in my ‘Stella and Rose’ anthology of short stories, so I suppose that is where the idea came from.
I have an idea for another ‘Avalind’ book, so perhaps it will be that, although no decision has been taken yet. Since ‘Larussi’ came out, I have written three ‘Rutter’ books, and I think that series is worked out for now. I may return to it later, but no fresh ideas have occurred yet.
Watch this space.
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